During his college football career, he was a member of the 1975 National Championship team, and was later voted the all-time, All-Big 8 kicker. In 1999 von Schamann was named the All-Century Oklahoma Kicker. He was most noted for making a clutch game-winning kick in the final seconds of the 1977 game at Ohio State, after leading the crowd in a "block that kick" chant. In Sooner lore, this play came to be known simply as 'The Kick'.[2]

After college, the Miami Dolphins drafted von Schamann, for whom he played for six seasons.
Von Schamann finished his NFL career with 101 of 149 field goal attempts (67%) and 237 of 250 extra points (94%), for 540 total points. In the 1984 season he set an NFL record, with 70 extra point attempts, converting 66 of them, records that stood until they were broken by Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski in 2007. A clip from the 1984 season of von Schamann kicking is used in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.